Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of… well, we’re not entirely sure but Star Trek fans can rest soundly in the knowledge that someone, somehow will be boldly going somewhere sometime in 2007. The glorious franchise resurrection that is Star Trek XI may not be doing warp speed but the project is making its way to our screens (at about a quarter impulse, if we’re any judge) and SyFy Portal managed to extract some details from writer Erik Jendresen.

What we know so far you could pretty much write on the back of a comm badge but it breaks down to this: Picard and the gang will not be involved, it’s going to be a prequel film set before Kirk, the Enterprise TV crew will (thankfully) not be involved.

"I can certainly say that the story concept, the basic idea of this thing, is pretty damn big,” says Jendresen. “It's a noble enterprise, pun intended. When I heard the notion, I realized that the people I was talking to were serious, and genuinely dedicated. I started to really think about it, and, ultimately to develop a story. And it's a pretty good one.

“We're going 160-odd years before Kirk is born. It's an earlier time, and I think it would be really refreshing to feel something in the course of telling this tale, instead of being wowed by special effects, or presenting another crew in jeopardy where, in the end, the captain does something brilliant, and all's right with the world. By the end of this story, everyone isn't fine. I can safely say as a storyteller with certain standards... my intention is literally as a writer, as a storyteller, as a filmmaker, to go boldly where no one has gone before."

Bold words indeed, especially given how tepid a reaction was reserved for the franchise’s TV sequel show, Enterprise, recently cancelled and unlikely to be missed by many. Indeed, more than a few Trekkies harbour a certain amount of ill will towards the show’s producers for dragging the franchise through such an undignified misadventure, something they’re rightly worried will be repeated with the prequel movie.

"There is a lot of misinformation out there, negative speculation and ill-will,” concedes Jendresen. "Everybody just needs to just take a Romulan chill pill and have some faith.”